


Different

by Kitt_Monroe



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Ambiguously Trans Fujisaki, Angst, Bullying, Gen, M/M, Spoilers for Chapters 1 and 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1694267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitt_Monroe/pseuds/Kitt_Monroe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They treat her differently, now. The trick is getting it to stay that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different

It was a little bit different, maybe. No, definitely. She had to admit it, the way they treated her here was definitely different than the way she was used to people treating her.

You see, usually she would be around people who knew. And people who knew were people who made her want to scream, because they were people who just...

Just _tortured_ her about it.

But these people, these different and new people, they had no idea how admittedly complicated her gender-sex thing was. And that meant she could start fresh with them, which meant she never had to tell them what kind of a person she really was.

...It sounded so depressing and sort of like she was secretly yakuza when she put it like that, but it was true. This really was about the "kind of person" she was.

Specifically, a boy.

...Yeah.

She was technically (?) a boy. Although, by any accounts besides technically parenthesis question mark parenthesis, whether she was _really_ a boy was up for debate.

She certainly wasn't a boy in the eyes of the aforementioned people she knew. And that was difficult to explain if you hadn't endured it personally.

"What kind of a man are you, you fucking nerd?"

"He's such a weakass geek."

"Uh, yeah, stay away from that kid, he's...well, he's kinda girly, you know?"

That was how it was...basically all through junior high. They were relentless, ruthless. Oh, and that counselor! Always trying to encourage Fujisaki to "talk about things." That was always the phrase she used, "talk about things." Fujisaki had instantly recognized that "things" meant "the fact that you don't act or look the way we've all decided you should."

"Fujisaki-kun, if you ever feel you want to talk about things, I'm always in my office, so just drop by whenever you like, alright?"

God, it was just so _patronizing._ Just because Fujisaki didn't play sports, just because maybe she didn't always wear guys' cologne (she liked flowery fragrances, okay? so what?), just because she had more girl friends than guy friends, what, she was some kind of mutant? Was that actually any of their concern?

...Well, _she_ didn't think so, but apparently they thought otherwise.

"Jesus, Fujisaki, how can you be such a _girl?_ It's like God made a mistake when he gave you a dick. It's like, He was planning to make you a girl, and He put all the normal girly shit into you but then He made a counting mistake and made you a boy instead, and some poor guy in like fucking Russia got your lady parts."

And they laughed.

"Hey, Fujisaki, you should just make it official and come to school in a dress."

"Yeah, you'd probably make a hot chick!"

"I would probably pay to see that."

And they laughed.

And Fujisaki...

Thought about that.

That was an interesting concept. She could still remember that night, holed up inside her bedroom, laptops and tablets and code emulation systems spread out on the floor around her (she didn't keep a particularly tidy room, and her parents, who by this point in her life were well aware she had emotional problems, never bugged her about it), various dresses and skirts and other items of "women's" clothing laid out on her bed as she tried them on, one by one, in her vanity.

She could still remember, she tried on _so many_ clothes. She narrowed it down eventually to a saucier look that included a sparling red blouse and a black miniskirt, or a more reserved style with a green cardigan and long brown skirt. She had probably known from the beginning, however, that she could never do something as audacious as the red blouse. She was by nature a reserved person, and her clothes, she figured, should reflect who she was.

How outstandingly hypocritical, right?

It made sense to her, though: if she was going to go through with this, if she was going to change completely who she was, then she demanded to keep her personality. That was her one condition--those horrible kids at school could break her down and force her to go into hiding, to retreat into someone completely different if they wanted, but if she could only have one term of negotiation it was that that completely different someone was still going to be her.

She still remembered staring into her vanity mirror, tears dried on her face from more than a couple distinct crying jags she had endured throughout the night until she finally decided on her look around two o'clock in the morning, a very small amount of makeup very clumsily applied to her pretty plain features. She still remembered her effeminate face staring back at her, revealing to her by its expression that, though she didn't realize it, she felt very confused. She had been so sure going into it that it was the right thing to do...

And yet, here was this dressed up, dolled up girl staring back at her in the mirror, wearing a face of withering uncertainty.

She just had to remind herself what she was gaining here. She still remembered gazing into the troubled eyes of her own reflection and, with a slightly shaky voice that gradually morphed into a shaky laugh that gradually grew a little disturbed, just barely maniacal, reminding herself, "If I do this…no one can ever tell me to ‘act more manly’ anymore… And it was...so easy...!"

She wasn't sure the uncertain expression, the troubled confusion in her own eyes, ever faded after that.

But she had to deal with that. She had to deal with the fact that she was lying, to her friends, to her family, to herself. Because what was the other option? Go back to being a boy when nobody liked her? When everybody was so sure _they_ knew what best for her, and what was best for her was to be a girl instead? Somehow, learning how to wear a dress and makeup seemed easier.

And then...she had gotten herself into this Hope's Peak Academy, Mutual Killing Life School Thing. And suddenly everything was so different. Because nobody knew. None of them had any idea she was really a boy, and it wasn't as though they had any way of finding out. Well, obviously she maybe looked a little different than the other girls--flat chest, slightly wider shoulders (but not too much wider, which was how she apparently looked so feminine in the first place), a little less curve in her hips (but again, not too much less)--but she could certainly pass for one of them. So as long as she kept low, didn't do too much of anything, she could keep on being a girl, and none of them would be the wiser.

And then Maizono died. And then Enoshima, and then Kuwata, and suddenly she had to start thinking about how she would do things. What would happen if they knew? It was obvious they had starting forming groups--Celes and Yamada were their own weird, unhealthy little dyad; Fukawa had starting crushing on Togami, who in turn was a maximally reluctant companion to Naegi, who had made friends in Kirigiri, Hagakure, and Asahina, the latter of whom had become great friends (to be honest Fujisaki had reason to suspect it was more than that) with Oogami; also Oowada and Ishimaru suddenly became friends ("brothers," they said) in an incident the exact details of which she still didn't quite know...

And she had no one. No serious friends, except possibly Naegi, who, when it came down to it, had pretty much become friends with every single one of them like that (insert snapping noise). She was desperate, desperate for anyone to connect with so she might be slightly less vulnerable to being brutally killed.

Yes, it was selfish, but it wasn't like she had made many real friends in school before. She just needed...someone.

So when Oowada came to her aid after Togami tried very hard to crush her first attempt at a self-confident opinion since arriving at the school, she was ecstatic. She finally had someone to lean on, someone she could trust and rely on to be by her side.

And then he called her weak.

"Hey, fucker! Are you having fun, bullying the weak!?" he had raged. If she hadn’t already been crying because of Togami, she would probably have started right then and there. It was just _that word._ That confirmation that, girl or no girl, she was the most unacceptably weak person in every place.

It was only after a heartfelt apology from Oowada later on that she was able to calm down and remember that it was okay still, because they still didn't know what kind of person she really was.

Again with that terminology, but it was still pretty appropriate.

So here she was, with Oowada as a new friend (a good friend even! ...a really good friend, actually, maybe even...like a boyfriend friend? she wasn't quite sure yet, but he certainly made her feel things she'd never felt), and by extension a second friend in Ishimaru. That was two, count them, two people she could be in a close-knit, safe group with. And things were even starting to look up for the group as a whole; it had been days since Kuwata's execution (goodness God, all those baseballs), and nobody showed any signs of wanting to murder anybody else. So, all things considered, Chihiro Fujisaki was in a good place.

Naturally, everything went to Hell.

In record time, really.

Suddenly they were all in the gymnasium, and Monobear was handing out envelopes with their worst secrets and memories in them and threatening to tell everybody in the world what these secrets were unless there was a murder in the next twenty-four hours.

She didn't even need to open her envelope. She knew exactly what was in it; in fact, she almost predicted the sentence on the small slip of paper word for word.

"Instead of being more manly he wears woman's clothes."

She felt like throwing up and screaming at the same time. And then there was Ishimaru, always with the ideas, suggesting they all go around and reveal their secrets, and in that moment Fujisaki could have kissed Celes and Fukawa full on the mouth for being the first to say they absolutely wouldn't tell theirs.

Because if they hadn't, then what if no one else had? Would they all just have gone around telling their secrets, and then would they have gotten to Fujisaki, and would she have had to tell them?

She hyperventilated almost exaggeratedly, splashing water on her face in her shower room to try to bring herself to her senses.

_Sorry everyone, I know I probably should've mentioned this but I'm a boy._

_Do with that what you will._

She stared blankly into the sink, trying not to scream lest someone hear her through the bedroom door she had left open in her haste to be alone.

"I am…weak..." she heard herself mumble, and she so desperately wanted that not to be her saying that, but it was her voice, and it was her who had been thinking it as she said it.

She stared back up into the mirror and saw this person, this girl who was _not her._ This totally wrong face that didn't belong to her, and somehow it was her face because she was so incapable of facing the truth that she had made herself this way.

"Weak weak weak weak weak weak weak weak weak weak weak...!"

She murmured the word until it rang in her ears, a mark of shame, a branding of the lie she was living just to protect herself from the person she really was.

But what else was there to do? Just tell them? Like she had hastily promised them she would, as soon as...something happened that she couldn't remember what she had said?

If she did, it wouldn't be different anymore. It would go back to being exactly the same as it had always been.

...Wouldn't it?

Or would it still be different? These were her friends, after all--well, most of them she could consider her friends in the grand scheme of things anyway, and as for Togami and Fukawa...well, they seemed like reasonably open-minded people--so maybe?

Maybe they would accept her? It was a long shot, but suddenly she was thinking about it and she couldn't stop imagining what it would be like. Dressing in boy's clothes, being able to have guy friends without it seeming like she was constantly flirting with them (a strange reversal, she recognized, on her earlier problem when she had too many girl friends), and just being able to be honest with everyone. Being able to be the person she really was.

But first she would have to be stronger. That was the most important part, was making sure she had the physical (and, eventually, spiritual) strength to go back to being a boy. And what was really special was that somehow, she didn't feel like she was _obligated_ to be strong. It felt like a privilege. Like something she had been so frightened of attempting, but that she now had the courage to reward herself with.

Being strong was something she _deserved,_ and that feeling was like a breath of fresh air.

Fujisaki wasn't stupid, though. (Can you imagine a hacker of less-than-average intelligence? Can you say train wreck?) She wasn't going to be able to do it on her own; no, she'd need someone strong to help her train. She immediately though of Oogami, but then she remembered if she wanted to get into the training room upstairs Oogami wouldn't be able to follow her into the boys' changing room.

Oowada, though? It would be perfect! The gang leader was obviously strong, and he _was_ a really good friend. Such a strong guy would probably be excellent for helping her access her full potential.

...He would be okay with the fact that she was a boy, right? That she had misled him and everyone else?

...Sure he would. He was a cool guy! Maybe she would have to sacrifice her vague dream of ever pursuing the "boyfriend friend" element of her feelings toward him (although who knows, maybe he swung that way), but that was okay as long as she had someone to lean on, someone to support her.

God, this was such a different feeling than she had ever felt before. She felt suddenly like anything was possible, like after almost two years of sealing herself up inside an especially fragile cocoon and dousing it with glue every time it threatened to crack, she was finally tearing it down, flying into the sky, free and beautiful.

She gave her reflection one last glance, smiling at the girl she saw because she knew it was the last time she would ever see her, dried her face, and skipped out of her shower room with--and she knew this sounded cliché as Hell--a heart full of hope.

"God, but this is going to be the best evening of my life," she cooed to herself as she exited her bedroom and started off toward the dormitory storage room to find a jersey.

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties with Fujisaki's gender identity, but I hope no one was offended. Thank you for reading!


End file.
